{"id":477718,"date":"2026-03-15T23:40:07","date_gmt":"2026-03-15T23:40:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/477718\/"},"modified":"2026-03-15T23:40:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-15T23:40:07","slug":"borthwick-has-been-unbelievable-for-english-rugby-says-jamie-george","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/477718\/","title":{"rendered":"Borthwick has been \u2018unbelievable\u2019 for English rugby, says Jamie George"},"content":{"rendered":"

A week ago, Steve Borthwick received a caveated vote of confidence<\/a> from Bill Sweeney, the RFU chief executive, who stopped short of confirming that he would remain in charge for the 2027 World Cup. The England head coach must effectively prove that he should stay in charge beyond this summer\u2019s Nations Championship fixtures.<\/p>\n

England\u2019s next match is an ominous trip to Ellis Park to face the Springboks on July 4, yet rather than be bowed by such a challenge, vice-captain George cannot wait. \u201cYes, 100 per cent,\u201d he said. \u201cWe haven\u2019t played them in a while. I can\u2019t wait. Genuinely, I can\u2019t wait. I wish it was next week.\u201d<\/p>\n

George believes that England helped put a \u201csmile on [fans\u2019] faces\u201d with their performance against France, who snatched victory at the death through Thomas Ramos\u2019s penalty. George was especially proud of how England put the squeeze on France at the scrum and maul, and is confident that they can do a similar job on the Springbok set-piece.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think so,\u201d George said. \u201cOur set-piece is in a great spot. Look, South Africa haven\u2019t played for 10 months. It\u2019s very difficult for us to comment on where they\u2019re at, but they are world class. They\u2019re the best team in the world. Johannesburg is a difficult place to play them. But what an amazing opportunity that we\u2019ve got with a great group of players. And we\u2019re going to be excited about that one.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018Up there with favourites for the World Cup\u2019<\/p>\n

Before the summer fixtures, the RFU must conduct a review of \u201cwhat hasn\u2019t gone right\u201d during a Six Nations campaign in which England set a number of unwanted records. As well as losing four games for the first time, including a historic defeat by Italy, Borthwick\u2019s team conceded nine yellow cards and 151 points, both championship lows for England.<\/p>\n

The review is expected to take several weeks and be conducted by a group of RFU and independent experts. George, however, is adamant the RFU should keep the faith, arguing that Borthwick can take England to World Cup glory in 2027.<\/p>\n

\u201cSteve is one of the best coaches I\u2019ve ever worked under,\u201d George said. \u201cUnder Steve, I think we will be right up there with the favourites to win the World Cup in 2027. We\u2019re a great team, a great group of players, and he\u2019s the perfect person to take us there. I think he has been unbelievable for English rugby, I think it\u2019s crazy what has been happening over the last few weeks, and he is absolutely the right man to lead us forward for a long time.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause he\u2019s an English coach who cares so much about this game but he\u2019s also a very, very good coach who has created an excellent programme. When you combine that with a good group of players it\u2019s a recipe for success. It hasn\u2019t been where it has needed to be over the last few weeks, the excellent thing about Steve is that we will have answers, we will have clarity to make sure it doesn\u2019t happen again and we will be trained and put in positions to make sure we are comfortable that that doesn\u2019t translate on to the field again.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A week ago, Steve Borthwick received a caveated vote of confidence from Bill Sweeney, the RFU chief executive,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":477719,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[7166,165016,170006,141939,5903,23451,170007,217,101,5438,5831,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-477718","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-england-rugby-union-team","tag-france-rugby-union-team","tag-jamie-george","tag-rfu","tag-rugby","tag-rugby-union","tag-south-africa-rugby-union-team","tag-sport","tag-sports","tag-standard","tag-steve-borthwick","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/477718","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=477718"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/477718\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/477719"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=477718"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=477718"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=477718"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}